


carve your pulse into my soul

by starklystar



Series: leave the war at the doorstep [9]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitals, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Self-Sacrificing Tony Stark, Temporary Character Death, this has the softest ending tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:55:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28454955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starklystar/pseuds/starklystar
Summary: There is a gun pointed at Tony's head, and a promise drawn onto his skin."Do you have any final words, Stark?" Zemo snarls in Tony's face."Yes," he says with a certainty he doesn't feel. He takes out the pen he had stolen from Steve, as slowly as he can, mindful of the bullet in the gun's chamber. "Let me write."---------------Or, a soulmate AU where what you write appears on your skin, and Steve would really love to punch Zemo to oblivion.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: leave the war at the doorstep [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654537
Comments: 30
Kudos: 533
Collections: Adorable soulmate stories (primary Tony/Steve)





	carve your pulse into my soul

**Author's Note:**

> turns out i enjoy whumping tony when searching for inspiration for my other WIPs, so you guys get this. hope you're all staying safe and doing well <3

Tony has built hundreds of thousands of weapons in his lifetime, and he knows each of them intimately.

It's how he knows the exact make of the gun pressed against his temple, the sharp edge of the barrel digging into his skin. 

A simple handgun with only three bullets, something Tony had known how to take apart when he was two, and to improve when he was four.

He keeps his head held high, eyes firmly fixed on Zemo, who holds the trigger to detonate half of Manhattan.

Baron Strucker squeezes Tony's shoulder tighter, as if the gun pointed at Tony's head wasn't warning enough.

"Iron Man," Zemo's voice is loud despite his mask, and he spreads his arms wide as if to welcome Tony. "It is a shame the other Avengers could not make it."

Through Tony's soulbond with Steve, he senses frustration mingled with fear. The Captain must be watching through the video feed captured by the military helicopters circling overhead, their whirring incessant over the eerie silence of Times Square.

"You asked for me," Tony shrugs as glibly as he can, his elbow bumping into Strucker's arm, but the gun on his temple stays firmly fixed. That's good.

The tighter Strucker holds the gun, the less he'll be able to adjust his grip when Tony moves.

Zemo fiddles with the detonator, nonchalant and arrogant. "I did. Captain America's soulmate. You are a remarkable man, Tony Stark."

"If you wanted a chat, we could've met up at the coffee shop," Tony flashes a grin.

This is a waiting game.

He had shed his armor to come as Zemo had asked: alone, unprotected. But his underarmor is intact beneath the Tom Ford, three piece he's wearing. He was trying out new outfits for his date with Steve when the call to assemble came, and while the thick fabric is sweltering, it means Zemo doesn't know about Tony's last line of defense. 

All Tony has to do is stall until the other Avengers have dismantled the explosives rigged to blow at any moment.

That was the trade, after all. Tony's life for the whole of New York.

More than a fair trade, no matter how much Steve had begged Tony not to go.

But Tony _is_ Iron Man.

It doesn't matter, it _can't_ matter that he is Captain America's soulmate.

_"Zemo is my enemy, it should be me going to him!" Steve had argued hotly, the sirens of ambulances loud in the streets._

_Tony cannot let that happen, just as he knows Steve can't let him go. But the city is in ruins. They're running out of time, and this is - Tony needs Steve to understand, to forgive Tony if things go sideways._

_"Zemo asked for me," he cups Steve's cheek, pressing their foreheads together, his armor an empty shell on the sidewalk, Steve's helmet dropped heedlessly on the ground. "And I refuse to let him near you."_

_"You can't expect me to - "_

_"Hey. I'll be alright, Avenger," Tony wipes away the first of Steve's tears with his thumb._

_Steve shakes his head. "Zemo wants to kill you. And Tony, he can. He can. This isn't a ruse or a bluff."_

_"I know," Tony reaches down to open one of the pockets of Steve's belt, fishing out the pen he always keeps there, knuckles knocking with the hard casing of the spare arc reactor Steve keeps with him always._

_Slowly, he takes Steve's left hand, unbuckling the red glove to kiss the inside of Steve's wrist before he clicks the pen and draws a star right over the pulsepoint there._

_"I'll come home," Tony promises, because they're Avengers. The impossible is what they do. What they have to do. "I have my north star right here," he taps Steve's wrist, then drops his hand to knock against Steve's belt again._

_He feels the tingle of ink forming over his own pulsepoint, the soulbond flaring with it so that a matching star appears on Tony's own wrist._

_He hopes Steve understands the unsaid message. Strucker is watching them, and there's no telling what he can hear._

_"You've made me selfish," Steve lets out a shaky breath, taking the pen from Tony and drawing a heart beside the star. That, too, appears on Tony's skin through the magic of their bond, lopsided but perfect. "I can't - you can't give yourself up like that."_

_Taking the pen again and keeping it in his breast pocket, Tony leans closer. At the very least, Steve gets to see him in his new suit. At the very least, Steve gets to see the tomorrow, the future that Tony has fought so hard to build. His legacy, Tony realises, is this lopsided heart binding him to Steve, to the hope for a brighter sunrise._

_"Promise me you won't look," Tony breathes out. "If things go wrong - "_

_"I don't think I can ever look away from you."_

_God, he loves this man so much. It hurts deep, beyond the arc reactor, beyond his bones, he hurts. His soul rebelling against what his mind knows he has to do._

_"You're the strongest of us," Tony reminds Steve._

_"Do I always have to be strong?"_

_A plea slipping out of Steve, desperate for Tony to find another way, and even now Tony can feel the undercurrent of helplessness running through their soulbond._

_"No," Tony teases, trying his best to coax a smile out of Steve, "sometimes you're handsome, other times insufferably adorable."_

_It works. Steve laughs wetly. "Come back to me, you hear me?"_

_"Loud and clear, Captain."_

_A kiss lands, first on the crown of Tony's head, Steve's hand on the back of Tony's neck as Steve breathes deep the scent of their lemon shampoo. "I love you."_

_Then another kiss, hard on Tony's temple, Steve's body trembling with it. Tony feels his heart crack at Steve's transparent attempt to shield Tony from his grief._

_"I love you more," Tony leans to kiss Steve's lips, ignoring the salt from their tears. He doesn't want his last memory of Steve to be tinged with sadness._

_"Go be a hero, Iron Man," Steve whispers into their shared breath, warm puffs ghosting over Tony's cheeks._

_"Go save our city," Tony squeezes Steve's hand one last time. "Go be my hero."_

He has to be brave, if not for himself, then for Steve.

Strucker presses the barrel of the gun even harder into his temple, splitting skin and drawing blood that drips annoyingly slow down Tony's cheek, where Steve had kissed him less than an hour ago.

The star and the heart inked into Tony's wrist throbs.

"It is a shame," Zemo circles them, a vulture feasting on its prey's final moments, "that you could not be swayed to my cause."

Tony scoffs, defiant to the end. Somewhere, Steve must be rolling his eyes, admonishing Tony for being so reckless, but Tony sees no other way to delay Zemo than to rile him up, to draw him into an argument and cast doubt over his plans.

"What cause?" Tony asks. "The killing millions of people thing? Been there, done that," he laughs bitterly, tapping the glass casing of his arc reactor, his secret weapon. "Learned my lesson."

"You are weak, Stark."

Howard had said that to him, Obadiah too. Large, hollow men who hold no power over Tony. Who knows nothing of strength, of steel, of iron. 

"Yeah," Tony nods, pretending to be thoughtful. "But at least I'm not stupid."

"Petty insults won't save your life, or your soulmate's heart."

"Hey, you started it."

Zemo growls at that, thumb falling closer to the detonator, and Strucker kicks at Tony's knees to get him moving even closer to Zemo.

It's then, by some sort of grace or blessing, that Tony feels the words spreading across his skin - with his comms confiscated by Strucker, it's their only way of talking - and he's so intimately familiar with the curve of Steve's letters that he doesn't have to lift his shirt to know what's being written on his ribs.

 _All explosives disabled_ , the letters tickle Tony's chest as they form, hidden away from Zemo's sight, _get yourself out, Iron Man._

Here's the thing. 

Getting out of this deadlock is something Tony wants to do. _Really_ wants to do. 

But he knows there's a missing piece. It feels too easy, too simple that a man as twisted as Zemo would not have layers of alternatives to counterattack the Avengers.

Optimism is one thing. 

Naivete is an entirely other thing that Tony as a futurist cannot fall prey to.

If Tony slips away, he risks Zemo escaping. That cannot happen.

He cannot let Zemo ruin the city even more. With each step closer to the man, glass crunches beneath Tony's shoes, a reminder of the chaos that had led to empty streets and the helicopters overhead evacuating the thousands injured, securing the area.

The Avengers are scattered throughout the city, the explosives placed far apart. 

Possibilities map themselves out easily in Tony's mind: if he were Zemo, this would be when he would strike. Stretched thin, the Avengers had no choice, just like Tony doesn't have a choice now.

There is a gun to his head, and a promise on his skin.

"Do you have any final words, Stark?" Zemo snarls in Tony's face.

"Yes," he says with a certainty he doesn't feel. He takes out the pen he had stolen from Steve, as slowly as he can, mindful of the bullet in the gun's chamber. "Let me write."

Zemo cackles, loud and harsh. "You are a silly boy after all. Love cannot save you."

"It can comfort me," Tony defiantly says, the pen's tip hovering over his right arm. He's left-handed. Very few people realise that of him, and it makes Zemo pause.

"Read out what he writes, Strucker."

Tony takes in a deep breath. He ignores the blood drying on his cheek, and Strucker's breaths in his ear, loud and irritating and not at all as ominous as the man likely wanted it to be. 

_I love you_ , he writes first, receiving a scoff from Zemo and a flaring pain in his chest as his soulbond ricochets Steve's fear, all-encompassing and growing even more desperate. _Everything's going to be alright_ , he continues to write, the final ' _t_ ' written in the crook of his elbow. 

He glances at the star on his left wrist. _Don't forget to keep my nightlight with you_ , he adds.

"Is the Captain afraid of the dark?" Strucker laughs, the sound jarring.

Words appear on the back of Tony's left hand, nothing loopy or neat, just quick scrawls betraying Steve's impatience and agitation: _Tony, no theaterics. Come home._

The last two words are underlined thrice. 

_I'm sorry_ , Tony writes back, and his heart clenches with guilt because he knows every little thing that hurts him will hurt Steve too. His soulmate, who will have to feel Tony's heart stop, who will be the first to know when his breaths stutter to a stop. They've been through enough accidents that Tony knows how much it hurts to have a soulbond break in death.

For a few seconds, no more words appear, and he looks up from his hand to see Zemo's eyes glinting with victory, clearly enjoying Steve's torment.

Then, right beneath the star, the same three words they whisper to each other every night, every morning. Tony doesn't need Steve to say them to know how Steve's voice would dip around the ' _o_ ' and lift back up at the ' _you_ ', almost a song, a hymn.

 _I love you_ , the letters ink themselves across Tony's skin. _I'm coming_.

 _No_ , Tony wants to write. Steve cannot go near Zemo, cannot fall to Zemo's bait to hurt him more, but Zemo darts forward, wrapping his gloved hand around Tony's throat, fingers digging hard beneath Tony's jaw. The movement knocks Tony's head even closer to the gun, and the pen in his hand clatters uselessly on the ground.

"The Captain loves you," Zemo says with so much derision. "You are the soul of the Avengers, and yet you give yourself up so easily."

"Should I add that to my résumé? Special skills: annoying villains and A+ self-sacrifice." 

Zemo's other hand taps on Tony's arc reactor, undeterred. "I will destroy the Avengers with you."

"Spoiler alert: I won't let you," Tony snarls back, only to have the hand around his throat tighten more. _That's going to_ _bruise_ , he thinks almost hysterically.

Strucker laughs again in his ear. "I thought you were a genius, Stark."

It's getting harder to breathe, but the closer Zemo is, the better. Tony glances up at the helicopters with their cameras. 

He hopes Steve can see him smiling. If anything goes wrong with Tony's gamble, he hopes Steve understands how happy he made Tony, he hopes -

He prays Steve finds new happiness.

A star and a heart.

A cheap trick, and a cheesy one liner.

"Steve," Tony says into the shining afternoon sun, into the cameras overhead, because he doesn't want his last words to be addressed to a madman, "everything's going to be alright," he promises, voice thin and raspy from Zemo's hand choking him.

"Sentimental," Zemo nods to Strucker, whose finger tightens over the gun's trigger, and -

" _Override Rendezvous 04-07-18_ ," Tony gasps out, there's a bright light, blue and hot and throwing Zemo back, the villain flung against one of the broken Times Square billboards, and Tony uses the distraction to slip from Strucker's grip, hand twisting around to pull the gun down, leveraging the force of his weight, but -

A loud bang.

Pain, _pain_ , white spots dance in Tony's vision, and there's another loud bang, right next to Tony's ear -

Is somebody screaming?

 _Steve._ He has to come back to Steve _._

Steve will be proud of Tony, won't he? All those sparring sessions did pay off. Or maybe Steve will be angry.

His chest hurts, there's a wetness in his throat that tastes of metal, which is, _oh_ , the arc reactor is flickering, and Tony has one knee on the ground, bracing himself.

Strucker is pointing the gun again at Tony's head, this time from a distance a few feet away.

Through the haze, Tony realises his stomach is bleeding. _Bleeding quite a lot, actually_ , he thinks with amusement that doesn't quite belong.

From point blank, the underarmor can't withstand a bullet.

He has to fix that for the next battle, a critical design flaw which needs improving, but _dammit_ , his new suit was ruined and he can't be late for his date with Steve, and that - that isn't important anymore, is it?

"You don't have your metal armor," Strucker's words waver with fright, his eyes darting to the charred hole in Zemo's chest. "How did you - " _  
_

"Futurist," Tony grins, something wet dripping out the corner of his mouth. There are loud sirens, the gun has one more bullet left, he has one more charge left on the reactor. A zero sum. "Give up, Strucker."

Strucker's eyes widen, gaze fixed far above Tony's bowed head. The aim of his gun lifts up, and Tony chances a look back -

Hard footfalls, someone running close to them, and Tony's soulbond singing over the harsh pain -

The gun has one more bullet left.

Steve is running to them.

Strucker isn't aiming at Tony anymore.

Tony has known how to take apart that gun since he was only two years old, he knows the force of the bullet once fired, the trajectory, the angle and the speed Steve is running towards it, and -

There's no choice.

Three breaths is all it takes:

One breath to stand, to press his hand over the reactor, to find the manual override clasp there.

Another breath to surge forward, over broken glass and concrete.

The final one to lock his arms around Strucker, to let go of the clasp, another pulse of blue light, another scream, another _bang!_ and -

"Don't look," Tony has the time to beg Steve -

Tony's body jerks with the force of the bullet.

He falls, falls to the ground, using Strucker's body to cushion the impact, but it never comes -

Warm hands.

His eyes flutter shut.

Someone is pressing hard on Tony's stomach, which hurts - it _hurts_ and Tony just wants Steve, he wants to say sorry because he counted wrong, because any moment now their bond is going to break with the dimming of Tony's reactor, the blood spilling out of the bulletwounds, and - 

A kiss, between Tony's eyes, a wisp of breath, words Tony is too far gone to understand.

And then, black.

* * *

What hits him first is the scent of disinfectant.

Sharp and new.

Only after that does Tony notice the weight over his hand and the stiffness of his arm that comes with an IV needle.

Slowly, cautiously, he blinks open his eyes, gratified to find the lights dimmed. There's no noisy beeping from the heart monitor - in the safety of the Tower's medbay, JARVIS keeps watch of their vitals.

He turns his neck the slightest bit to the right, smiling when his eyes are immediately greeted with a blond mop of hair.

His soulmate, slumped in sleep over his arm.

The clock on the far end of the wall shows it's far too early in the morning for even Steve to be awake, and Tony contents himself to float in the buzz of morphine alone.

Ever since his soulbond with Steve, Tony has been far more amenable to receiving treatment, to lie still in medical and be prodded around by an army of nurses - what hurts Tony will echo to Steve, and Tony is unwilling to pay the price of pain if he hurts more than himself.

Glancing down at his left arm, he finds phrases there that feel old, words matching those that he sees snaking up Steve's own arm, already starting to fade with time.

How long had he been knocked out?

The star on his pulsepoint is still there, however, although its lines have grown thicker, as if Steve had drawn over it again and again to keep it from fading.

Beneath it, his name.

 _Tony_. _Tony. Sweetheart_.

_Wake up?_

_Rhodey says hi._

_DUM-E made another smoothie._

_The sky was really blue today._

All the simple things Steve would've muttered to Tony before bed, the small bits of love spilling over the edges, onto their skin. 

At the very end, written onto Steve's palm - onto Tony's palm - are three small words, nearly smudged out.

_I miss you._

He swallows back the wave of - of longing, fondness, want, _guilt_. He can picture it: Steve sitting in the medbay's waiting room, their bond severed as Tony's heart stops another time, and Steve hoping beyond hope that his name, that the words written into their soul might call to him even beyond death.

Only Captain America would be stubborn enough to fight death.

Only Steve Rogers would be obstinate enough to fight death for _Tony_.

Carefully, so as not to jostle him awake, Tony reaches for the pen on the bedside table. They will no doubt fight after this, Steve yelling at him for his recklessness, but while Tony is on the good stuff and the pain isn't spreading from his bandaged abdomen, he scribbles a short message for when his soulmate wakes up.

Slowly, the words form themselves on Steve's skin too, settling the anxious wave and loosening the tightness in Tony's chest.

With Steve slumped on the bed beside him, he drifts off to sleep, calmed by the steady breaths beside him.

* * *

"You replaced my arc reactor," Tony concludes with a spoon of pudding in his mouth. "And I'm alive. You're alive. All is well."

Steve glowers at him. The rebuke is clear in his stormy eyes, but Steve glances down to his arm, at the blocky letters that Tony wrote for him to wake up to, accompanied by a conciliatory smiley face with kisses at the end -

_Good morning, beloved :) xoxo_

"You're alive," Steve repeats with a tired sigh, leaning forward in his chair. His hand reaches out to touch the new reactor shining brightly in Tony's chest. It's the spare one that Steve had carried in his belt for good luck, that no doubt was used to replace the depleted one from battle. "And you'll be sleeping on the couch for a week."

"How about four days?" Tony tries to bargain.

"Three bullet wounds in your stomach, Tony, and you - " Steve bows his head, pressing a kiss over Tony's scarred knuckles, long and lingering. "Your heart stopped five times before Helen and Bruce could use the cradle."

Alright. Perhaps a week wasn't too bad. Especially given that Steve would never actually make good on his threat.

Tony puts down his pudding cup, running his fingers through Steve's hair. It's an uncombed mess that must've come with eight days of no rest. "I'm sorry." A warmth floods through their soulbond, something near to forgiveness and acceptance. He shifts around in the medbay's bed. "Lie down with me?"

Steve huffs, giving Tony another kiss. This time, over the stitches on his temple where Strucker's gun had drawn blood. "Tomorrow," he promises Tony, pointing to the IV bag hanging above the bed, "Bruce gave strict orders. No jostling your stomach."

"That's no fun," Tony pouts, returning to his pudding.

Silently, Steve walks to the cabinet at the corner of the room, coming back with a container of salve that he applies liberally to the fading bruises around Tony's neck from where Zemo had choked him. The quiet is unnerving, the gentle touches sending shivers through him even as the cooling salve soothes the faint pain.

Staying pliant, Tony distracts himself by poking holes into the pudding, allowing Steve to speak again on his own terms.

Being touched this softly always felt like a miracle. Being touched this softly while Steve was clearly battling his displeasure of Tony - it feels like absolution, like a grace that Tony doesn't deserve.

Part of him breaks beneath the gentle pressure, cracking to let more of Steve's light in.

There are days when he doubts how Captain America could ever be his soulmate, and there are unembellished days like these when their jagged edges slot roughly into place, pushing each other to the brink and brushing away the ashes of their fires, finding new truths and a deeper strength in the aftermath.

Eventually, Steve closes the salve again, sucking in a sharp breath. 

"Not very fun feeling your soulmate die either." The way Steve says it, almost dismissive, makes Tony stiffen.

"I'm here," he abandons his pudding once more in favor of tapping on the star still inked onto both of their wrists. "I'm home. With you."

"Zemo is in a coma. Strucker too." A soldier, giving a report. Steve's way of processing the madness of war, of battle, of loss. "No casualties. Some few hundred were injured, but Damage Control is handling it."

"That's great." _Go save our city,_ Tony had said, and Steve must be holding onto that as an anchor. "You did good, soldier." Now, he has to make Steve believe that this is real, that him being awake isn't some product of Steve's desperate, grief-stricken mind.

"No casualties," Steve repeats, hand squeezing around Tony's. "No casualties."

The pen. Tony takes the pen that's been moved back to the bedside cabinet, and beneath his good morning message, he adds ' _missed you too, Winghead_ '.

Steve stares at the words appearing on his skin, shaking his head, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Damn you," Steve curses, voice breaking. "Tony, _dammit_."

"Let it out," Tony starts doodling stick figures on his hand, if only to give Steve a sensation of safety though their bond, reminding Steve's heart that Tony's is still beating alongside it. He adds a small heart between the two stick figures.

"I should be the one comforting you, not the other way around," Steve mutters, adjusting the edges of Tony's blanket to tuck it in more neatly.

"You did have your soulbond break," Tony points out, wincing at the thought of the pain he had put Steve through, "and I'm - I'm _actually_ sorry I can't promise never to do that again." On the blanket, Steve's hand shakes. "But I can promise to make better underarmors," Tony adds with more cheerfulness than necessary. "I can promise to make better explosive detectors."

"As long as you stop dying on me."

"I'll be up and walking and driving you crazy in a week," Tony tugs Steve's hand closer, which makes Steve tut at him, now moving from the blanket to fuss over the tangled up IV tube.

"You're _already_ driving me crazy," Steve says, and the small laugh Steve lets out feels like the true victory of this entire mess with Zemo. The last battle, the final laurel that comes in the giddiness of Steve's joy.

Tony is home. 

His soulbond - scarred and broken and healed and shattered and healed again - surges with renewed strength, Steve's relief springing through it, sending a buzz more comforting than any medicine. 

"Told you everything's going to be alright," he smiles easily into that comfort. 

"Yeah," Steve nods, taking over the pudding cup and scooping up a large spoon. Forgiveness. Acceptance. The burden they bear as Avengers. "You did."

Tony lets Steve feed the rest of the pudding to him, lets the sweetness of it burst between his lips, and he lets his contentment seep through their bond, smoothing over the stubborn worries rooted in Steve's heart.

"I owe you a new nightlight," Tony teases mildly, buoyed by the turn in Steve's mood.

"No," Steve's smile grows wider. "You owe me a date _and_ a nightlight."

"Technically, you also owe me a date."

"Then that means we get two dates."

How did Tony score such a perfect soulmate? "I love you," he breathes out.

Steve places the empty pudding cup away, finally rising from his chair to perch at the edge of the bed. There's a reason why Tony had ordered larger than normal beds for the medbay, and it pays off when Steve curls his warmth around Tony, pressing their foreheads together in an angle that should feel awkward but only feels like home.

"Thank you," Steve murmurs, "for coming home to me."

Tony leans up the slightest bit to kiss Steve properly on the lips, sinking into its familiar warmth.

"Where else would I go?"

* * *

A month later, as Tony dresses up in a new suit for their dinner date, he finds himself grinning into the mirror, hands hovering over the new words forming on his collarbone, a necklace he wants to wear forever.

_Good evening, beloved ;)_

* * *

Tony finds Steve in his dressing room.

They don't quite make it to dinner.

But they _do_ enjoy a very pleasurable date.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @starklysteve :)


End file.
